Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

The point Im trying to make (did you read it?) is that no-one is using this forum to trumpet the virtues of alcohol or tobacco. Theyd soon be told to stop if they did.

Not wrong, more a bit silly. But I wont be taking that particular bait and I suspect few others will either.

Are you saying Shamans are silly, because believe you me, they are still here hidden in this shitty society, doing what they do under the radar, so i shouldn't really be saying anything about that.

Yes of course I'm saying they're silly, thats why I said it. But there you are, we disagree. You express your views so you exercise Free Speech, I express mine so I Bear Bait. That's the assessment of convenience from on high, innit? We're clearly never going to get married,I see that now, so lets stop.

Except to say, the idea of a load of scruffy twerps high on thousands of mushrooms hidden away in hawthorn thickets mouthing incantations under the radar of society and thinking they are having an effect beyond their own skulls is just priceless and will long stay with me. I wonder if we old folks in tweed jackets should hunt them down on polo ponies using falcons? View Haloo, there runs a shaman, fly straight and true my beauty! Bring me his mystic teacup!)

I'm not quite sure where to put this as there seems to be two threads about rock art and haven't managed to read them all yet.

I picked up a library book the other day by Frank Delaney called 'Ireland'. From what I can make out it is the history of Ireland as told by a travelling story teller in the 1950s. He pitches up one night looking for food and shelter. As the family who take him and their neighbours gather around the fire he tells the story of how Newgrange was built (the opening chapter of the book). Fictional of course but quite fascinating:

"Here and there he stopped to caress the shapes. He stroked the stern triangles and merry whorls, geometric chevrons that looked like worried frowns, smiling triskelia and swirls, a little rippling field of diamond patterns, sweet presences on and in stone. They reflected the world around Newgrange: the triangles made by the hilltops in certain phases of light; the rings on a tree's trunk; the eddies and whirls of the river Boyne."

Hi June,

That is a lovely piece of writing, and your posting of it has inspired me to seek out the book.

I have read one of Frank's books, a factual one, called "A Walk to the Western Isles, after Boswell and Johnson". I found it an interesting read, and can recommend it.

Ta,
TE.

Well i do know who'd be hunting who, you say stop but you seem like what you're really saying is "i'll stop if i can have the last little dig", i'd say grow up, but at your age i don't think that's going to be happening if it hasn't happened already, and you don't have a clue about the sorts of things people are up to in this country [ and i don't mean me ].

It is brilliant the way the author connects the tomb with it's landscape, we always need to see these places not stood on their own but connected to everything, The Web of Wyrd [ another good book ].

In rock art [ I've seen lots ], I've seen carved and pecked enclosures and forts, sometimes even with the huts pecked in, hut circles and farmstead themselves, maybe even with the amount of people living in them [pecked in the image of a hut] at the time of the carving, places for water [still water like wells and moving water like springs], places for food [hunting spots], images of the sun, moon and stars, cairns, ringcairns, stone circles and henges, fords to cross rivers, where to find the right stone [ strong enough ] to make axes, pathways, rivers and there's always a way to orientate yourself with the landscape around the stone. Remember a lot of places would have been wooded and everyone knows how hard it is to orientate yourself in woods and last but not least abstract images of what they saw on the hallucinogens that culture loved so much, so some of the art is therefore very similar to aboriginal dreamtime rock art [ which isn't as old ], as in whats drawn can only be seen on the hallucinogens, so these things won't really make much sense to us without having the hallucinogens in that landscape ourselves, i had lots of mushrooms up on ilkley moor once and saw energy spirals and pattens match the carvings on the rocks perfectly, as did the 2 people with me. Whatever way you look at it they are maps of physical things in the landscape and the natural energies within the landscape as well, that's why most people can't see the whole picture and therefore put ideas on the way the ancient people thought that they would never have thought about themselves and therefore would have meant nothing to them in there real lives back then, everything mentioned above WOULD have meant something to them though. I don't think the so called experts can see the wood for the trees, take the sweetie jar thing [wisdom of the masses] where they ask 1000 people and they'll always get right near the answer, well if you use that same thing in rock art the main answer you'd get back is some kind of map, so to me it that's another reason to prove they're maps, so called experts look to far into it and therefore overcomplicate it, take a stand back and look, you may even see that the trees are made of wood.